


safe house

by keptein



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 05:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2953985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keptein/pseuds/keptein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>n.<br/>1. a house or apartment used as a hiding place or secure refuge, as by an intelligence agency or underground group.<br/>2. an inconspicuous place for refuge or clandestine activities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	safe house

**Author's Note:**

  * For [widow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/widow/gifts).



> this is for [shannon](http://belfst.tumblr.com). i'm gonna try not to get too mushy here. you've done a lot for me this year, more than i think you know, and i appreciate the hell out of you. you're one of my favorite people on the whole world, and i hope you like this as much as i liked writing it. i hope 2015 is a fucking rad year for both of us, and i'm gonna try my best to make it so. thanks to [bishop](http://arotsukki.tumblr.com) for looking over it.

“Alright,” said Tetsurou’s boss, accepting the memory stick and accompanying documents he held out. “That was your last assignment of the year, as requested.”

“Thank you,” Tetsurou said.

She looked through the files. “We’ll contact you if you are needed for anything further,” she said. “Good work, agent. You are dismissed.”

Tetsurou nodded. “Happy holidays,” he said, and she smiled before looking pointedly toward the door.

He took his leave.

*

**To: Bokuto Koutarou, Kozume Kenma**

< I’m free. What are your plans for the holidays?

**From: Bokuto Koutarou**

> DUDE!!! I’M GONNA BE IN NYC 4 BALL DROP COME STAY W ME :D :D

> DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE A PLACE 2 STAY YET THO LMAO

**From: Kozume Kenma**

> i’m in japan

> but you can’t sleep on my couch until after new year… someone else is using it

(Well, Tetsurou thought, Switzerland it was.)

*

The safe house in Switzerland was his. It wasn’t in his name, per se - few things were - but it was his nonetheless, a small haven in the middle of nowhere. This time of year, the town nearby would be bustling with tourism, which made the cabin feel remote, but not isolated. The perfect place to destress after a long year of ops, assignments and trying not to get busted.

Besides, Tetsurou was hoping to see someone there.

They hadn’t made any promises - Tetsurou had joked about it when they met up in August, explained where it was and how to get there, but he hadn’t gotten any firm statements one way or the other.

That was fine, though. Tetsurou dealt in uncertainties.

(Still, he couldn’t stop himself from spending the entire plane ride wondering if Tsukishima would take him up on the offer.)

*

The snow lay thick and undisturbed around the cabin, Tetsurou noted with disappointment. It was still snowing when he arrived, bags heavy on his shoulders - he found his way to the door, sighing as he tried to stomp out some sort of pathway. It wouldn’t do to get snowed in.

The door wasn’t locked, but that was not unusual. He knew how pointless a lock was if someone really wanted to get in, and the cabin didn’t house anything valuable - really, if someone trekked two miles just to rob him, they deserved that old can of chicken soup in the cupboard.

 _I’ve arrived and still alive,_ he texted Kenma, putting his bags by the door as soon as he got inside. He wouldn’t get an enthusiastic reply, but he knew Kenma appreciated the updates. Then he noticed something on the floor, by the bags he’d just sat down. Shoes. He got his phone back out. _Holy shit Kenma he’s here?? What do I do_

“Tsukishima?” he called out, peering around the first floor of the cabin. There was a combined kitchen and living room, both decorated sparsely, as well as a small bedroom, but no Tsukishima.

Tetsurou walked up the stairs. He opened the door to the upstairs living room slowly, wary of Tsukishima’s reflexes - but Tsukishima wasn’t lurking around the corner. He was on the couch, feet covered in a soft blanket, a book in his lap that he momentarily looked up from.

“Hey,” said Tetsurou.

Tsukishima’s eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Hello,” he said. “I thought you’d take another couple of days to get here.”

“Well, here I am,” Tetsurou said, spreading his arms. Tsukishima didn’t reply, and Tetsurou made an awkward chuckling sound that he immediately tried to cover up. “What are you reading?”

Tsukishima looked down at his book, then back up at Tetsurou. He sighed. “Can I have a few days, Kuroo,” he said - it wasn’t a question. “I need to acclimatize by myself.”

“Oh, okay,” said Tetsurou and went back downstairs.

He threw himself on the couch and covered his head with a pillow. How did he always manage to make such an idiot of himself? Tsukishima was here, that was more than enough. Tetsurou got it, he knew that sometimes you just had to be alone. So what if it didn’t go like he’d expected it to? He’d already got more than he thought he would.

His phone vibrated. He lifted the pillow.

**From: Kozume Kenma**

> talk to him...?

< Not a good idea.

> ok.. good luck

Tetsurou sighed, and allowed himself a few more minutes to wallow before he got up to make food.

*

Tetsurou left Tsukishima alone for the next few days, like he’d asked for. He didn’t have any choice. Sometimes he would hear Tsukishima rummaging around upstairs, but Tetsurou didn’t ever go up - it felt like an invasion of privacy now, even though this was his place.

Instead he read a lot. He read some hilariously inaccurate spy novels, and more than once he was halfway through a mocking text to Tsukishima before he had to reword it and send it to Bokuto instead.

The second day, he mowed snow, clearing a decent way around the cabin. Outside, there was only sky blue and crisp white. The snow had settled now, and Tetsurou’s own footsteps were still clear as day, all the way from the road. Tsukishima had to have arrived a while ago for his path to be completely gone - unless he’d covered his tracks on purpose, which Tetsurou wouldn’t be surprised by.

After clearing the snow, he sat down on the porch. The snow bit at his cheeks, and he rubbed his wool-clad fingers together. The cold was bitter, burning its way down his lungs - he hated it, but it was also a refreshing reminder of where he was. No work. No noise. The sky was clear and bright above him, no looming towers to infiltrate and no one he had to trick.

No one to lie to and no deadline to do it in.

He breathed in deeply, so deeply it hurt. For once, he had time to sit and feel it. Somewhere inside, Tsukishima was trying to calm down, trying to find the time he already had. Tetsurou looked forward to him emerging from his cave, but there was no rush.

He took off his gloves and rubbed snow between his hands. There was no rush.

*

After he’d spent enough time outside to remember why he usually avoided the entire concept of winter, Tetsurou went back inside. Darkness fell hard and fast around here, and he preferred the ignorance of being indoors rather than sitting outside and watching it come.

He was slouched on the couch, aimlessly wasting money on international texts to Kenma, when footsteps on the stairs made him sit up straighter. Tsukishima had been downstairs once, to bring his food upstairs, but Tetsurou had only glimpsed that from the windows outside. They hadn’t spoken. Now, Tsukishima stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a woollen jumper over his broad shoulders.

(It was highly unnecessary, Tetsurou thought, for Tsukishima to look like he came out of a fashion spread even when there was no mark in sight.)

“Hello,” he said.

“Hey,” Tetsurou said, instinctively moving so there was room on the couch. His phone lay forgotten on the table.

Tsukishima sat down next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“Don’t apologize,” Tetsurou said easily. “I get it.”

Tsukishima exhaled harshly and looked away.

“Do you feel better?” Tetsurou asked. Tsukishima looked back at him and nodded.

“It’s been a long year,” he said.

“That’s what you said in August too,” Tetsurou said. “Which reminds me, you never actually told me what went down in Hungary.”

Tsukishima gave him a half-smile and took the invitation to start narrating, body visibly loosening as he got more into it. He put his feet in Tetsurou’s lap, or maybe Tetsurou put them there - either way, Tetsurou rubbed his feet between his hands while Tsukishima told him what happened in Hungary.

“I was just thankful Tadashi was there,” Tsukishima said, and Tetsurou laughed.

“Yeah, that’s what friends are for, right? Lev and I were in Bulgaria once, and we’d been sent to - have I told you this one before?”

“No,” Tsukishima said. “Continue.” He gestured to where Tetsurou had stopped rubbing his feet, and Tetsurou smirked.

“You’re demanding, aren’t you?”

Tsukishima shrugged.

Tetsurou shook his head, still smiling slightly, and started again. “But yeah, this must have been back in ‘07, we were both pretty new to it - Lev was even fresher than me…” This was one of Tetsurou’s party stories (although the general public got a heavily edited version of events) - he knew it by heart, and he was surprised he hadn’t told it to Tsukishima before.

Then again, they hadn’t exactly been to many parties together.

(Unlike Lev, Tetsurou did not think of knife fights as any kind of party.)

Sitting there, in the homely warmth of the cabin, Tetsurou remembered that hot night in August. He remembered the feel of Tsukishima’s body against his, his lips, the slight rasp of stubble that said Tsukishima hadn’t planned it, probably hadn’t thought they would end up like that at all. Tetsurou remembered a phone call from Shimizu and a sudden goodbye, his mouth still tingling the entire way to the office.

Was that where they were headed now? Tetsurou grew quiet, looking at the feet in his lap and then up at their owner. Tsukishima was all honey and gold in this light, which caught on his hair and the frame of his glasses. Tetsurou wanted to take them off and run his hands through that hair, see if it would feel different against his fingers now, but he didn’t need to. This could be enough - Tsukishima close enough to touch, eyes and ears open for whatever Tetsurou wanted him to see, or what he wanted to tell him.

Speaking of. “Then what?” Tsukishima prompted.

“Yaku found us in the hole a few hours later,” he said. “Of course, Lev had already had time to eat all the berries and pass out in a panic. I learned a lot of things about dead weight on that trip.”

“Which has come in handy, I’m sure,” Tsukishima said.

“Of course,” Tetsurou said. “Though it’s hardly the preferred outcome.” His hands were just resting on Tsukishima’s feet now, fingers loosely gripping sturdy ankles. He rubbed absently at an ankle bone, momentarily lost in thought. When he looked back up, Tsukishima was already staring at him.

Tetsurou kept his breathing measured, although he could feel his muscles tensing. Tsukishima’s eyes were dark and unreadable.

“We should make dinner,” Tsukishima said, popping the tension as quickly and effectively as one would a balloon. He freed his legs and stood up, waiting for Tetsurou to do the same.

“Alright,” Tetsurou said.

Both of them had brought food when they arrived, so there was more than enough to sustain them until after New Year’s. “Do you ever think about quitting?” Tsukishima asked him, once the pasta was boiling and the sauce was simmering on the stove.

Tetsurou shook his head. “Not like this,” he said. “Not yet.”

Tsukishima nodded and turned away, but Tetsurou wanted to keep his attention for as long as possible.

(Forever was impossible and unhealthy, he knew that, but a lot of his dreams were.)

“I was thinking I’d maybe go freelance, though,” Tetsurou said. “Stop being under the Man’s thumb, you know?”

Tsukishima snorted. “You’d never cut it as a freelancer.”

“You doubt,” Tetsurou said sadly, a hand clutching his chest. “I could be a brand, you know. Dress only in black leather, call myself the Black Cat or something.”

Tsukishima looked slightly dazed, before he blinked and replied, “That’s a comic book character.”

Tetsurou sighed in put-on disappointment.

“Kuroo Tetsurou suits you better than any code name, anyway,” Tsukishima said off-handedly, and turned his back on Tetsurou to stir the tomato sauce.

All through dinner, there was a warm glow in Tetsurou’s chest, and he didn’t think it was from the chili powder he’d accidentally knocked into the sauce.

(Not only, at least.)

Neither of them had thought to bring wine, and Tetsurou quietly mourned the lack of it. Wine would have been a motivation and an excuse both, a way for him to feel the waters while giving him the courage to do so.

He did the dishes while Tsukishima stayed seated at the table. The soap in the dishwater stung a cut on his hand that hadn’t fully healed yet, and the pain brought him out of his thoughts.

He didn’t really know what he was afraid of.

When the dishes were clean, he wiped his hands on a towel and turned back to Tsukishima. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was suddenly reluctant to break the comfortable silence that had fallen, and instead he ended up just looking at Tsukishima until he looked up from his phone.

“What is it?” he said, frowning slightly.

“I have an idea,” Tetsurou said. “Let’s stargaze.”

Tsukishima looked out of the window and back at him. “You hate the cold,” he said.

Tetsurou shrugged. “So? I’ll make coffee.”

“Okay,” Tsukishima said finally.

Tetsurou put some water on, smiling slightly.

There was nowhere to sit outside, so Tetsurou sacrificed some blankets to the cause, putting them on the steps to the front door. He sat down next to Tsukishima, handing him a steaming cup of coffee that Tsukishima accepted in gloved hands.

The sky above them was black, the stars scattered like crumbs on a tabletop. Tetsurou leaned back against the wall to look at them. He wasn’t familiar enough with this hemisphere to immediately point out any constellations, and instead he tried to make up his own.

“That’s the Spy,” he told Tsukishima, pointing out some stars that vaguely resembled a stick figure.

Tsukishima hummed skeptically.

“He’s the guardian angel of, uh, ops,” Tetsurou continued. “Not getting busted, that kind of thing.”

“Sure,” Tsukishima said. He didn’t sound like he was laughing at him, but Tetsurou knew better.

“He puts everything on the line to get where he has to be,” Tetsurou said, “and what he wants.” He looked over at Tsukishima, who met his eyes.

“Kuroo,” Tsukishima started, then he broke away and drank from his cup. “It’s not that easy.”

“Isn’t it?” Tetsurou said. He felt light, like he could walk on the snow without leaving any trace. He didn’t need this, it was true, but there was no point in caution when they’d never practiced it before.

Tsukishima shook his head. “It wouldn’t work,” he said. “We haven’t had time to see each other since August, and with jobs like ours…”

Tetsurou drank his own coffee, considering Tsukishima’s point. “I haven’t seen you in a while,” he acknowledged. “But it’s not like our friendship has suffered. I managed to fall in love with you through all that anyway, didn’t I?”

There was silence. Tsukishima looked at him, then up at the night sky. “Yeah,” he said finally. “We both did.”

Tetsurou tried to hide his grin behind his cup, but it was futile. He looked up at the stars too, leaning against Tsukishima, before he got an idea. “Wait here,” he said, and gave Tsukishima his cup to hold while he darted inside.

He had bought them on a whim, had thinking he’d send a picture of it to Bokuto to get a laugh out of it, but they were better suited for this cheesy, ridiculous, stupid gesture. The sparklers were still in his bag, and he dug them out triumphantly, bringing them and a lighter back outside.

Tetsurou sat back down next to Tsukishima - he drained his cup and gestured for Tsukishima to do the same, setting them beside him on the steps. He got out a sparkler. “There are no shooting stars right now,” he said, giving one quick glance up to the sky to confirm that, “so this will have to do.”

Tsukishima was frowning again, and Tetsurou grinned at him. He lit the sparkler and held it out for Tsukishima to grab.

“Make a wish,” he said.

Tsukishima sighed loudly, but his lips were definitely twitching, so Tetsurou considered it a success. “You’re being childish.”

“Maybe,” Tetsurou said, shrugging. “I want to take this risk. Like this, it’s on me.”

“That’s not how it works,” Tsukishima said. He looked at the sparkler, the lights hitting the snow and his knees, then he looked over at Tetsurou. He held the sparkler away and leaned in, kissing him firmly.

Tsukishima’s lips were faintly chapped, tasting of coffee and cold. Tetsurou put his hand on Tsukishima’s knee and kissed back, closing his eyes.

It was all-too brief before Tsukishima pulled away, cursing and shaking his hand. The sparkler was lying in the snow, last embers fading fast. “I think it went through my glove,” he complained.

“Sorry,” Tetsurou said, laughing. “I’ll kiss it better for you.”

Tsukishima glared at him, cheeks red with cold, and Tetsurou laughed harder.

“Let’s go inside,” he suggested, when he’d calmed down. “We can warm up.”

“I regret this already,” Tsukishima said, but he followed Tetsurou back inside, hands intertwined between them.

*

( **From: Kozume Kenma**

> did you die? kuro…?

> i don’t know how to arrange a secret funeral

> tsukishima’s a good fighter so i don’t think you died…

> you can’t both stay on my couch… i hope you know that)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr as [asexualtobio](http://asexualtobio.tumblr.com).


End file.
